1. Field of the Invention
The present invention belongs to the area of perfume and fragrance compositions and refers to new fixatives for long-lasting application.
2. Description of Related Art
It is clear that most consumers determine their personal care product purchase based on two features: the promise of a claimed benefit and the appeal of the product's fragrance. Invariably, before the product is even applied to the skin or hair, the consumer will smell the product. However, the appeal for a product's fragrance does not end with that initial whiff of the bottle.
The consumer expects the fragrance to last on the skin and hair for a reasonable amount of time. Most fragrances are designed to provide an initial “burst” of aroma upon application to the skin which then levels off providing the more uniform, less intense, characteristic “signature” of the perfume. Fragrances that are put on in early evening are usually expected to last at least through the evening by the wearer.
For the most part, perfume oils are composed of a multitude of single components that together give the oil its characteristic signature. The finished fragrance or perfume oil is typically composed by a combination of various odoriferous materials such as essential oils, extracts from woods, gums, flowers and other botanicals, resins, animal secretions, as well as synthetic aromatic materials. Once blended, they exhibit what are known as “top”, “middle” and “end” notes which all contribute to the consumers perception of the fragrance at various times. The top note is the first refreshing burst the consumer senses upon initial application. The end note is the essence of the fragrance which stays with the wearer for a long time. The middle note is the perceived quality that bridges the top to the end notes. To make the fragrance last longer certain materials can be added by the perfumery chemist. These are known as fragrance fixatives. Typically, some of the materials used as fixatives are floral or botanical absolutes, concretes and resinoids, macrocyclic musks, nitro musks and synthetics. Nevertheless, none of the fixatives known from the state of the art fulfill the needs of the consumer.
It is also known to use controlled release systems in order to provide a constant amount of fragrance to skin or hair. Examples encompass capsules or complexes based on dexctrines, melamines or obtained by coazervation of anionic and cationic polymers. However, said capsules or complexes are difficult to formulate into a fragrance composition and the release is little controlled but depends on variable factors like sebum amount or sweat intensity.
Therefore, the object of the present invention has been to develop new long-lasting fixatives for fragrance performance at 8 hours post application with limited fragrance reduction. More particularly, the fragrance intensity should not diminish over a period of less than 8 hours and should remain “like just applied” at each of the following intervals:
Initial fragrance at delivery
In-use fragrance—working product into skin/hair
In-use fragrance—immediately after rinsing skin/hair
At 4 hours (with damp skin/hair)
At 8 hours (with dry skin/hair)
At 8 hours with re-wetting of skin/hair